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In the Book of Exodus, when the Israelites were freed from Egypt, they did not make the journey to the shore of the Sea of Reeds all in one day. They camped along the way, including stopping at a city known as Sukkot (Ex 12:37).

Rabbi Tali Adler connect this Biblical fact with the circumstances of the present moment, as we wait for the Israeli hostages to be released. She writes:

There's a place you land after you've left Egypt but haven't yet crossed the Sea.

It's a place of joy and hope and almost-lightness. And with it, so much fear. Fear that it could all come crashing down, and you'll be right back in the darkness. Fear of what will happen once you have a moment to breathe and take in the massiveness of the grief of everything that came before.

The name of that place, when the Jews left Egypt, was Sukkot.

And maybe that's the sort of Sukkot we sit in this year: not in clouds of glory, and not in ramshackle huts.

Just a small city right outside of Egypt, somewhere between terror and hope, gazing over the horizon at the sea, and dreaming of what it might feel like, finally, to cross over to something new.

Rabbi Adler offers a new way of looking at Sukkot this year, as the families of the Israeli hostages wait nervously to see if this deal will be upheld and finally bring home their loved ones. We wait alongside them, holding our breaths, hoping that the nightmare that began on October 7 will end with the return of the captives and the cessation of fighting. A rabbi friend described feeling “cautious optimism” about the deal. Another rabbi friend corrected that to read “nauseous optimism,” that feeling in the pit of one’s stomach when one wants to believe the news to be true, while worried sick that it is not.

We pray that the captives will soon return home. We pray for healing and recovery for them and for everyone affected by this war. We pray for a time of calm, of renewal, and, ultimately, of peace.  

May it truly be a Shabbat Shalom.